Scenario A:
Rampant Viruses/ Exploding Nukes
The causes are just distractions. The outcome is the same: empty cities but plentiful resources. The real problem won’t be smoldering ruins—it’s the hell that is other people. And zombies. Steal an armored ATV like in Damnation Alley or a Doomsday¹-style converted bus. Fill it with food, water, and gear like they do in Survivors². Also, guns. At least those will scare off the cannibal raiders à la The Road³ or The Book of Eli. And if Omega Man taught us anything, it’s that world-ending viruses also create zombies, so aim for the head. You’re also going to need to know kung fu. Zombies hate kung fu.

Scenario B:
Natural Disaster
Errant asteroids, flip-flopping magnetic poles, or total climatic collapse will make things awfully lonely. Just look at that poor bastard in The Quiet Earth⁴. He ended up dressing in a lady’s slip and preaching to a cardboard cutout of Hitler. Worse yet, you’re going to be hunting for water like the Solarbabies or freezing your ass off in a Day After Tomorrow⁵-style winter. So bring a pair of roller blades and a warm jacket. Also, engineering and physics textbooks are the perfect foundation for rebuilding the ties that bind humanity (though an RV also helped in Ark II⁶). And track down a knockoff lightsaber—if it’s good enough for Thundarr the Barbarian…

Scenario C:
Alien Invasion
When giant alien tripods start blasting people with heat rays, as in War of the Worlds⁷ or, um, The Tripods, you have little recourse but to hope they forgot to take their allergy meds or that, like in Independence Day⁸ , their computers are vulnerable to a Mac virus. If the aliens look just like us, bodies are gonna get snatched. Smart survivors observe friends and family to distinguish them from pod people, à la Invaders From Mars⁹. Tolerance for g forces and heights helps, too, whether flying fighter jets against 10-foot-tall Thetans—er, aliens—from Battlefield: Earth or jumping from helicopters to kill (non-alien) dragons in Reign of Fire.

Scenario D:
Authoritarian Dystopia
Life in the megalopolis can be fun—the restaurants! the thunderdomes!—but it’s always raining acid, and traffic is a bitch. First things first: Get a job as a cop. That gig made life easier in the Blade Runner¹⁰, Logan’s Run, and Judge Dredd¹¹ universes, and it lets you learn cool skills, like Gun Kata in Equilibrium¹². Professional athletes also have it made, so join the Rollerball team or the pit crew in Death Race 2000. The slavering proles will bet on your success even if you’re a convicted murderer, like in The Running Man. Skip the exhausting Matrix-ian messiah act. The one takeaway: The State hates kung fu.